


To Those Who Love (Only When They're Bleeding)

by Lady_Vibeke



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Jealousy, Leonard Snart Lives, M/M, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Season 4 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-08-13 03:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20167264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: Leonard feels like he's just resumed watching a movie he's put on hold, but something's off and the scene doesn't match where he left off. He doesn't know how much he's missed, but the Sara and Mick standing before him are way beyond the point where he paused.Sara's demeanour has changed; she's always been confident, but the way she carries herself now shows a whole new level of boldness, as if she owns the space around her and everyone in it. Beside her –very close beside her– Mick's presence is solid, almost intrusive. He stands side to side with her as if he's always belonged there, within the borders of her personal space, a territory Leonard himself rarely crossed, and never with such spunk.He picks up a vibe between them, something that sparks his curiosity but he cannot quite place.He narrows his eyes at them, at their uncertainty.“Well? Is that how you greet an old friend?”





	1. Saved by Salvation

**Author's Note:**

> Sara and Ava never got together. Someone else got together. Someone was unknowingly left behind. Feelings are a terribly complicated thing. Sometimes, they're a little less complicated when you're not facing them alone.

_And here’s to the broken hearts we’ve created _  
_And here’s to the misery we’ve tried to forget_  
_ And while we wait for things to get better_  
_ May I suggest something that we haven’t tried yet?_  
_ Can we get, can we get a little closer?_

— September West, Can We Get a Little Closer?

***

“What's on today's menu?” Mick asks, striding into the control room with a beer in his hand.

Sara is standing before the panel, watching the coordinates Gideon is setting to their next mission.

“Werewolf sightings in the Old Wild West.”

Mick stands beside her, drops a quick kiss on her head, then turns to the panel. Sara feels him freeze as he wraps an arm around her shoulder.

“Salvation,” Mick assesses quietly. His knuckles whiten around his beer. “The fuck's wrong with that hell hole? There's always some shit goin' on over there.”

“It's probably a sensitive spot in the fabric of Time or something,” Sara guesses. They do seem to be drawn back there quite often.

Mick lets out a non-committal grunt.

Sara knows what he's thinking; it's what she's thinking, too: it was their last mission before losing Leonard. They've talked about it a lot, especially right after the Oculus – about how good he looked in his cowboy gear, gun in his hand, smirk on his lips. Sara suddenly realises that she and Mick did an awful lot of bonding over honouring Len's memory, and they probably would never have got so close if they hadn't lost someone they both loved. It was their way of mourning him: not with tears and screams, but with alcohol and tales, long nights spent talking about the man Len was before becoming a Legend, and the man he became after that. The man who died a hero.

At that time, Sara was just glad to have someone to share her grief with. The real surprise had been finding solace in Mick, of all people: grump extraordinaire, severely allergic to feelings, Mick was the one to pull her out of her silent misery and forcibly put her back on her feet.

Not that anyone else noticed she was broken: she was very good at hiding that. But Mick, who was just as broken as she was... Mick just _knew._ And understood.

What happened after that had been a surprise to both of them.

“I warn you,” Mick said after a long pause, his attention still glued to the coordinates on the screen. “If Haircut and Pretty start fanboying again, I'm gonna hurt them both."

Sara splays a hand on his back, gives him a soothing rub. “I'll make sure the kids behave.”

“Behave? Are we going to Disneyworld?”

Sara turns back to give Ray a warning look. His smile falters as he comes to a halt. Beside him, Nate whispers: “I don't think we're going to Disneyworld, buddy.”

“Go get the others,” Sara says with a sigh. “We have a furry situation in 1872 Dakota.”

“Furry situation? Please tell me it's not another Minotaur.”

“Forget the lullabies,” Sara conveys. “We're gonna need silver bullets.”

*

_Mick lies in the medbay in a bed too small for him and fixes the ceiling wishing he could set it on fire just by staring at it. It that was possible, this whole damn ship would be a pile of smoking ashes, by now._

_Snart's gone. The bastard thought it'd be cool to go and kill himself to save the day and everyone's asses – to die in Mick's place._

_Mick cannot kill a dead man – nor he has a body to tear apart as a rebound – so his anger simmers quietly in his veins, crawls under his skin and curls his hands into tight fists. The need to set things on fire is driving him insane._

_He's got a mild concussion, Gideon said. Gideon also told him what happened in that damned Oculus and Mick now knows he has someone else to take out his anger onto._

_Sara was in there._

_Sara took Mick away._

_Sara let Len die and had the nerve to kiss him before she abandoned him to his fate._

_Mick wants to kill her._

“_How do you live with yourself?” he asks her when she comes to check up on him._

_The kid looks at him with with grief-stricken eyes, lips pale and dry trembling a little, a pathetic sight that earns no pity from him._

“_Who says I do?”_

_Cold and sharp. Snart would have liked that._

_Snart liked a lot of things about this girl. That fool._

“_That makes two of us, Blondie.”_

*

Salvation hasn't changed much since last time. Except for the hundreds of warnings to observe the curfew if you don't want to be torn apart by a giant coyote.

They head straight to the sheriff's office, but the man who's polishing his rifle at the entrance stops them right there:

“Jonah's outta town. What business do ya have with the sheriff?”

Mick takes a step forward, caressing the Heat Gun in his belt. Sara grabs his arm and addresses rifle guy a girlish smile:

“Very urgent business. If you were so kind to tell us where we can find him-”

“Ya ain't gonna find him,” rifle guy spits back. _Literally _spits: he's got half of his teeth missing. “Ya gotta turn to the deputy or nuthin'.”

“Deputy it is,” Sara groans. She has no idea how they're going to be able to fix this without Jonah, but they don't have much of a choice. She makes to walk into the office but rifle guy stops her again:

“He ain't in there, doll.”

“No?”

Rifle guy lets out a squeaky snicker. “If y'all lookin' for the deputy, ya gotta go where money and whiskey are.”

Sara turns back to the team with an impressed face as Ray's huge grin falls and John and Charlie chuckle.

A corner of Mick's mouth curls.

“I like this guy.”

*

The saloon is dim and dusty as usual, crammed with brawling men and prostitutes.

Ray and Nate are immediately swarmed by girls eager to fulfil they every need. John kindly pushes a couple of them off himself: “Sorry, lasses, not in the _girls_ mood, today.”

“On the other hand,” Charlie says, quickly sliding in between the two rejected ladies. “I'm in girls mood every day. Let's get something to drink, yeah?”

“Guys, we're here to work!” Sara scolds, but Charlie has already taken off with the girls and John is gesturing the bartender for a drink. “I swear to god,” Sara hisses between her teeth. “They're all grounded for two weeks.”

Ray and Nate are trapped in a could of colourful dresses and high-pitched chatter. Zari is nowhere to be seen. They really need to have a talk about discipline and self control.

Mick puts a hand on her hip. It's warm and calming and dissipates Sara's anger in a second. “Let's find the deputy,” he suggests. “See what he knows about the wolf. If he's useless, there's no point in wastin' our time in here.”

Sara nods.

It's almost unbelievable that this Mick is the same Mick she met on that rooftop years ago. Sometimes she feels like she woke up one day and found out that the selfish pyro criminal had changed into a sensible, semi-responsible leader overnight.

She can't remember the stages of the whole change, not just in Mick, but in everything. She can't remember realising he was changing – _they_ were changing – until she found herself buried in his arms, grounded by the strength of his embrace, kissing him like she had never kissed anyone before, like she has never _wanted_ anyone before.

“Hey,” she says as he starts walking away. She pulls him back, cups his face into her hand. “You okay?”

He looks wistful. He has since she told him about this mission.

Mick puts his hand over hers, guides it down to his chest and squeezes it.

“Let's do the job and get outta here, Blondie,” he says. “Don't wanna take no trip down Memory Lane.”

*

“_I miss him too,” she says._

_Mick doesn't know why, what purpose it's supposed to serve. It doesn't make him feel any better to know that. Snart died for Mick and Sara just let him go: this is all that matters. This is why he can't forgive her, nor Snart._

_She misses him, too. Good. Mick hopes it hurts like hell. He hopes guilt is haunting Blondie and keeping her awake at night as it's doing to Mick._

_He's not sure how they ended up getting drunk together in the cargo bay. He can't even remember who was here first, who found who, who was the one to host and who joined. It doesn't really matter._

“_I wasn't ready to let him in – didn't think I was,” Sara is muttering, voice thickened by the alcohol. Mick isn't sure if she's talking to him or to herself. “And then I was, but it was too late.” He's not looking at her, but he can tell she's crying by the way words crack low in her throat. “I kissed him before running, like a coward. All we ever had was a stupid goodbye kiss. I never told him-”_

_Mick hates her. Or he _wants_ to, he _would,_ if only her grief wasn't so genuine and so damn relatable. What he and Snart had, it's not something he can explain, least of all to her, but it was too strong and deep to be wiped away just like that, and even though something was severed the day Snart sacrificed himself like the idiot he was, Mick still feels the bond within himself, vibrant and pulsing, very much alive._

_If Blondie feels even one small shard of what he's feeling, she must be hurting like hell. That is something he can sympathise with._

“_He knew.”_

_He just blurts it, he doesn't even know why. He realises he means it only when Sara raises her eyes to him so hopefully that, for the first time in forever, Mick genuinely _wants_ to be kind to someone._

“_How do you know?”_

“_I know him,” he says, then huffs out a snort. “Knew him. Whatever. He cared about you, take what you get.” He casts her a dry look, feeling he half hates her for this, and half... something else. The fact that this kid was so important to Len somehow makes her important to Mick, and he doesn't like finding himself attached to people, especially without his own consent._

_Sara lets out a cynical laugh that doesn't really completely mask a sniffle. “You're saying that as if he didn't care about you, too.”_

_He watches her, considers her through hooded eyes, head resting back against the wall. He doesn't have the energy to argue about this right now._

“_He didn't. Not like that. Not after what I did as Chronos.”_

_Curled in her corner between two crates, Sara draws a long sip from her bottle, shakes her head._

“_It wasn't really you.”_

_Mick absently wonders id she actually means that or if it's just a lie chose to believe, something she's telling herself to be able to look at him without feeling sick. He wouldn't blame her if it was the latter._

“_Tell that to Len,” he retorts. “I threatened to kill his sister before his eyes a thousan' times. I don't care if I was brainwashed or whatever. That was me. I could've killed Lisa for real.” He feels a knot at the pit of his stomach. The mere thought that he could have harmed Lisa just to hurt Len – that he was _craving_ to do that... He disgusts himself. He wishes Len let him die and spare him from facing this shame. “I was the one who deserved to die in that fuckin' time hole.”_

“_No one deserved to die there,” Sara snaps sharply, almost angrily. Mick sees a glimpse of flames in her eyes, a passion burning hot and wild deep inside her. He likes that, likes this savage side of her she tries so desperately to keep at bay._

_His mouth stretches into a reluctant grin._

“_You defendin' me, Blondie?”_

_Sara pulls her knees to her chest, props her chin to top of them staring at Mick with a challenging expression. She looks impossibly young and small._

“_Yes,” she says without hesitation._

_The knot in Mick's stomach unwinds. Something warm crawls up his back._

“_Why?”_

_Sara just shrugs._

“_It's what Len would have done.”_

*

The guy the bartender indicates as the deputy sheriff is sitting at the busiest table in the saloon, engaged in a poker game that has gathered quite an audience. There are several girls around the other players, but the man with the black hat and black trench-coat is alone. Sara can only see his back, broad shoulders and a tall, lean figure. A strange tingle flutters in her chest.

“'s that our guy?” Mick asks, frowning at the man with a look Sara can't quite place. She realises that, whatever she's feeling, he's feeling it, too.

“So it seems. Do you think we can disturb him?”

“Don't care,” Mick says and strides in the guy's direction with his fists clenched, ready to put up a fight, it necessary. Sara knows him well enough to know he _hopes_ it'll be necessary.

She crosses her arms and follows, a small, fond smile tugging at her lips.

“Hey, backup sheriff!” Completely disregarding the ongoing game, Mick grabs the guy's shoulder to make him turn. The deputy spins around with his whole chair, cards still fanned his hand, and Mick jumps back as if he's seen a ghost.

When Sara sees the face of the deputy, she realises he _has._

The man in the chair smirks at Sara's and Mick's stunned faces. He lets his cards fall to the floor, leans back with his elbows on the armrests and quirks a brow:

“About time,” he drawls, giving them both a quick, appreciative once over. “I've been rotting in this hell hole for six months.”

Mick looks paralysed. Sara doesn't remember seeing him like this before, so dismayed he almost seems terrified.

Her voice is shaking pathetically when she hears herself stutter a feeble: “Len?”

Ice blue eyes meet hers mischievously.

“Hello, Sara. Mick.” Len greets amicably. “What took you guys so long?”

*

“_What're you doin', Blondie?”_

“_You know damn well what I'm doing.”_

_Mick grabs her hands, pries them off his belt. _“_Stop.”_

_Sara kisses him again, inhaling sharply before pulling back._

“_We both need it. We both want it. Just once won't hurt anybody.”_

_Mick observes her, soaks up the heat of her body pressed all over his. He wants her. He wants her as much as she wants him._

“_You have no idea how wrong you are.”_

_He gives in to her kiss. To her._

_She lets him slam her against the wall and rip her clothes off like wet paper. Her nails graze his back, drawing blood and a grunt of approval. He thrusts hard into her, makes her bleed, too, but she tells him not to stop, she begs him not to stop._

_They hurt each other, make each other bleed, and maybe it's the pleasure that keeps drawing them to each other, maybe it's the pain. They don't care._

_It works, this twisted thing between them, the angry, bitter spite disguised as sex. With nails and teeth and screams, they cling to each other like there's nothing else keeping them here._

_And maybe there isn't._

“_Sara.” He never calls her Sara. “It wouldn't fill the void. You can't just replace someone you loved tryin' to love somebody else. That's not how it works.”_

“_Are you talking to me or to yourself?”_

“_Doesn't matter.”_

“_No one will ever replace Leonard. For either of us.”_

“_So where does that leave us, me and you?”_

_Sara's face darkens. Her fingers brush down his face as she watches him pensively. _

“_It leaves us alone, and lonely. Unless we admit we'll have to let someone in, at some point.”_

“_You want me to let you in?" He almost laughs. "It's dark and cold in here, kid.”_

“_I know. Same here. But you're a pyro, aren't you? And fire-”_

“_Fire doesn't fear dark and cold.”_

“_Yeah," Sara nods, and Mick really doesn't have the strength to do the honourable thing and push her away. It's too late, anyway: the damage is done._

“Screw _it," he curses, then pushes her back against the wall._

_She's right: a good fuck never hurt anybody._

_They'll worry about the consequences in the morning. _

*

Leonard isn't sure what to make of the situation. He imagined this happening, of course, at least for the first couple of weeks, but it was never so awkward in his imagination.

Mick and Sara are gaping at him with hilariously shocked faces and, well, can he really blame them? It's a Legends thing, apparently: the people of the Waverider never die to stay dead. It happened to Raymond, to Sara, to Mick... Now it's Leonard's turn to jump out of the box and yell _'Surprise!'_

He lost all hopes to be rescued after the first two months here. For some reason, the exploding Oculus decided to spit him out in the last place he visited in History. Could have been worse, of course. The Old West wasn't the worst option he could have ended up with, and Jonah welcomed him with the most ironical job offer Leonard ever received, and playing deputy sheriff has been fun, so far: getting paid to kick people's asses isn't half as bad as he would've thought.

He was almost coming to accept the fact that he would never get to go back to his time, but now here he was, being interrupted in one of his most remunerative poker games by none other than his former team. Elegantly late, but better late than never, he guesses.

They've finally come for him, but something isn't right.

Leonard feels like he's just resumed watching a movie he's put on hold, but something's off and the scene doesn't match where he left off. He doesn't know how much he's missed, but the Sara and Mick standing before him are way beyond the point where he paused.

Sara's demeanour has changed; she's always been confident, but the way she carries herself now shows a whole new level of boldness, as if she owns the space around her and everyone in it. Beside her – _very close beside her_ – Mick's presence is solid, almost intrusive. He stands side to side with her as if he's always belonged there, within the borders of her personal space, a territory Leonard himself rarely crossed, and never with such spunk.

He picks up a vibe between them, something that sparks his curiosity but he cannot quite place.

He narrows his eyes at them, at their uncertainty.

“Well? Is that how you greet an old friend?”

Mick is the first to find his speech again.

“You're dead,” he says matter-of-factly. “How do we know it's really you?”

Leonard opens his arms helplessly. Behind him, the poker has resumed without him. He guesses he won't be collecting his winnings when he leaves.

“It's me,” he replies. He tilts his head to one side and give Sara an allusive smirk. “Maybe Sara can try me. I'm sure she remembers what my kisses feel like.”

On a hunch, he checks Mick's reaction out of the corner of his eye, but Mick is still immobile, unresponsive. Sara, on the other hand, appears to be sincerely at a loss.

“Len,” she mutters, eyes glossy. She moves a tentative step towards him, but it's like she can't bring herself to get too close. Nothing new, here. “You've-” She shoots a surreptitious glance at Mick, which he returns a little worriedly. “You've been gone for three years. Things have... happened.”

“_Happened,_ not changed,” he notes. “Very interesting choice of words.”

So he's been dead for three years, to them.

This changes everything. His whole perspective shifts abruptly, his brain tries to accommodate his calculations to this new piece of information, but all he can put together is questions.

Three years is an awful lot of time, especially compared to the handful of weeks it's been for him. To Leonard, everything was supposed to be unaltered: he was planning to be rescued and go back to things as they were, as if he never left, but this... he couldn't have predicted _this._

He looks around the room, expecting to spot a few familiar faces; he finds none. Correction: he finds one. Raymond is being held hostage by a group of prostitutes who seem very intrigued by the gun in his pocket. There's someone with him, a quite attractive young man who's being equally pestered by the merry ladies. Leonard has no idea who the guy is, but, by the way he and Raymond are huddled together to shield themselves from their aggressors, he bets they know each other very well. Meaning Pretty Boy is a new addition to the team.

Leonard is very curious about him, wants to ask what happened to the ones he isn't seeing and who are the ones he _is_ seeing but cannot recognise.

“Is Gorgeous a newbie?” he inquires with a glance to where Raymond and his buddy are.

“Yes,” says Sara, almost absently. “The two girls at the counter and the weird guy,” she adds, nodding towards Charlie, Zari and John. “They're new, too.”

Leonard briefly considers the three strangers in question and feels strangely out of place. This isn't _his_ team. This isn't the home he was supposed to return to. He wonders if, after three whole years, he still has a place among these people.

Then he sees it – sees the look Sara fleetingly exchanges with Mick, sees the instinctual brush of their hands against each other, _seeking_ each other, and he knows exactly what sort of _things_ have _happened_ while he was gone.

Mick and Sara notice his stare. They jerk apart, but it's too late.

Leonard rises from his chair, walks up to them trying to decide if he feels more amused or betrayed.

“Now, that is something I didn't think I'd live to see,” he comments, his attention flickering between the two of them. “Forgive the irony.”

“Len-” Sara begins, but the words die on her lips. There's a silver band on her left ring finger that Leonard doesn't recognise, and another silver band on her pinky that Leonard knows very well. He gave it to her.

”Grief has a way of bringing damaged people together, it seems,” he says. He didn't mean it to sound like an accusation, but it did, and he's not entirely sorry. “Quick question: was I even cold in my metaphorical grave when you two started fucking?”

He finds himself with Mick's fist around his collar before he's even done speaking.

“Watch your tongue, buddy.”

It takes Leonard a moment to shake off his surprise and break free from Mick's iron grip. He wasn't anticipating such a passionate reaction.

“Don't tell me you've gone decent, now,” he sneers.

Mick doesn't pick up his provocation; he just steps back, pats his shoulder with a light chuckle. “You got a lot of catchin' up to do.”

“I sure do.”

It's remarkable. This definitely isn't the Mick Leonard remembers. He looks at him, then at Sara, who's wearing such a guilty face Leonard almost feels sorry for her. _Almost, _because the way they look at each other is making him feel both sick and incredibly lonely.

“Well, well, well, look at the two of you,” he says with a bitter taste in his mouth. “Love does change people, after all.”

Sara glances around at the crowd and the noise surrounding them. “We should take this to somewhere more private.”

“Sare,” Mick warns. “We got a job to do.”

_Sare._

He calls her _Sare._

Jealousy creeps up Leonard's chest, its sharp talons clawing their way to his soul.

“If you're here for the werewolf, you can put away your guns,” he announces, forcing himself to sound casual. “I made it up.”

Sara scowls at him: “Why?”

“To cover up my sideline business.”

Leonard doesn't miss the nostalgic grin that flickers across Mick's face. It hurts him more than he cares to admit.

“Does your sideline business have anything to do with the disappearing cattle?” Sara inquires, and Leonard crosses his arms.

“What can I say,” he shrugs. “Being deputy sheriff doesn't pay much. A guy's gotta make a living.”

Mick is scrutinising him with an unreadable expression. Leonard knows that face: it's the face Mick wears when he's assessing the potential danger of a situation. He's afraid, Leonard realises. Afraid the Leonard's return might take away something of what he's built in these three years without him.

“Relax, my friend,” he tells Mick as they follow Sara towards the others. “By the way she looks at you, I can assure you you've got nothing to worry about.”

Mick snorts. “I got you,” he replies. “I always worry about you.”

The phrasing leaves Leonard staring, fumbling for words.

They want him to go back with them, to be a part of this new team he doesn't even know.

He's not sure he wants to go.

*

_Sara is not in love._

_She doesn't want to be in love._

_She keeps saying that._

_She says it so often it doesn't really work anymore, not for herself, nor for Mick._

_They try to deny their feelings for a while, mark it as _just sex,_ or _stress relief, _but truth is they stopped believing that the moment they woke up into each other's arms and realised life looked better from there._

_At first, their relationship is clumsy, tentative. When they're around each other, it's suddenly like they have no idea how to interact with another human being: they go by trial, take baby, wobbly steps, tumble, fall; they say things they don't mean to guard themselves from the consequences of what they do not dare to say, words too scary and dangerous for either of them to utter without facing demons they'd much rather forget about._

_So silence becomes their ultimate weakness, the void that devours them when they lie together in a tangle of limbs and shattered souls, clinging to one another in a desperate attempt to make up for the empty space they have inside, twin black holes that have a name and a face and a voice. A voice that sneers at them from another world for their stupidity and their cowardice, for their inability to be with each other, even if, somehow, they've grown so close – so tight together that sometimes it's hard to breathe._

_Time washes the clumsiness away, wipes the doubts. It leaves only the comfort, the beautiful sensation that they're drifting somewhere close to home._

_They start standing closer even around the others. It's not intentional: they seek one another instinctually, always find themselves walking together, sitting together, eating together._

_It doesn't take long before the team start noticing. Mick and Sara don't try to hide it. Before they know, they're a thing. There's no official announcement, no serious talk about then whens and hows: one day they're nothing, the day after Sara is sitting on his lap as she hands out assignments for the mission and everyone's perfectly cool with it, as if it's been like this since forever._

_Mick is grateful they don't make a big deal out of it. It makes it easier for him to see his bond with Sara as a strength, and not a weakness._

_It takes them one whole year to accept they are in love._

_It takes another eight months and a near death experience for Mick to take things to the next step._

“_Marry me,” Sara blurts out of nowhere as she watches him limp out of the medbay leaning on a crutch._

_Mick stops on the threshold, his chest half covered in bandages and a long cut across the side of his face. He feels nothing like husband material as of now. But Sara is looking at him with those eyes, amused by his bewilderment, and somehow it makes sense. Everything makes sense._

“_You sure about that?” he starts asking, but halfway through the question Sara throws herself into his arms, and his clutch falls to the floor when he holds her and kisses her, kisses her like there's no tomorrow, and she laughs in his mouth, hands stroking his face, his neck._

“_You can say no,” she whispers over his lips._

“_What am I, an idiot?” he scoffs, then pulls her up into his arms and pins her against the wall. “We've been annoyin' each other for two years,” he sighs hoarsely in between hungry kisses. “Might was well put a ring on it.”_

*

Leonard says he's not sure he wants to go with them. Sara can't entirely blame him.

He smiled when she told him she's the Captain, now, and though he seems to like the new additions to the team, he's visibly not comfortable with them.

Ray hugs him and it's a shock when Len hugs back. It's so extraordinary that for a moment Sara really believes Len will be persuaded to get back on board with them.

It's not that easy.

The real problem, she assumes, is her and Mick.

Sara and Len had been close to becoming _something_ when the Oculus happened; she _kissed_ him, kissed him goodbye with the embryo of a feeling throbbing in her heart, and this embryo is still there, dormant, frozen, but very much alive. She doesn't need to tell Mick about that, because the same feeling lives within him, as well; an older, more evolved version of it, perhaps, but she has no doubt the feeling is the same.

She's been pacing back and forth in their bedroom on the Waverider for the better part of the last few minutes. Sitting on the bed in his pyjamas pants, Mick is patiently waiting for her calm down.

“You're gonna dig a hole in the floor.”

Sara stops, brushes a hand through her hair with a sigh. “I know. Sorry.” She goes to sit next him, lets her head fall on his shoulder. “I don't know what to do. We just found him and we're losing him all over again.”

He rubs his hand up and down her thigh, plants a rough kiss on her temple. “He needs time. Let him simmer, he'll be more malleable in a couple of days.”

Sara pulls herself up to grin at him: “Since when I'm the hot-headed one and you're the wise, sensible one?”

“You've been a terrible influence on me,” he says, playfully nudging her with his shoulder. Sara nudges back.

“Likewise, Mr Rory.”

“You're welcome, Mrs Rory.”

They sit for a while without talking. There's so much on her mind that Sara can't even _think. _She knows exactly what she needs.

With a swift movement, she straddles Mick's lap and starts kissing his neck, cupping his head with one hand and unfastening the string of his pants with the other.

Mick wraps his arms around her, moans in her mouth when she grinds down against his hardening erection.

“Give an old man some warning, kid.”

“Shut up. I want you inside me. Right now.”

“Yes, Boss.”

They roll back onto the mattress and Sara's cry of pleasure fills the room.

She loves Mick. Loves this man full of scars and wounds and so much to give buried deep inside him under curtains of grief and regrets.

She writhes under him, arches her back as she holds him tight against her, pulls him as close as she can, and when she comes, screaming his name, she wonders what it would have been like if Len had never left.

Would she and Mick still have got so close if they hadn't had to deal with his loss? Would they still be here, now, lying spent and blissful into each other's arms, or would she be here with Len, instead?

She buries her face in the crook of Mick's neck as a question slowly submerges from the back of her conscience.

_Could I be here with both?_


	2. Wounds Left Unmended

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Broken people cause broken hearts. Stubbornness leaves wounds unmended.

Sara's fingertips are tracing the patterns of the scars on Mick's chest, a feather touch that, little by little, helps his breath even out and melts what's left of the tension in his body. In the afterglow haze, his mind drifts away, to wherever Leonard is now, asleep, perhaps, or drinking the night way in the saloon. Alone. Alone as he has been alone for the last few months, waiting for them to come and bring him home, while he and Sara were moving on with their lives, nursing one another's wounds, building something new from the ashes.

Mick has everything, today, just because three years ago Leonard died.

He's not delusional: he and Sara would have never got anywhere close to each other if they hadn't lost him. It would be Len, now, lying here with her naked in his arms, and Mick would just be a presence gravitating in the periphery of their personal sphere – a friend, a side-kick, but not one of their own. He would be standing where Len is standing now.

“You think too loudly,” Sara complains, snuggling tighter to his side.

Mick's hand rises to stroke her hair; she leans into his caresses like a pliant cat. “We gotta tell him, Sare. He's gonna find out anyway.”

Sara presses a kiss to his shoulder. “If he hasn't figured it out, already,” she argues while she plays with the ring Mick wears on a chain around his neck.

“Are we gonna talk about this?”

“About what?”

“About Len bein' back.”

“We don't need to talk about it,” Sara says. She tugs him down to demand a kiss, and Mick has to crane his neck to meet her halfway. “We know exactly how we feel about him, don't we? It's kinda what got us together in the first place.”

Mick stares at the ceiling. The ghost of a doubt that has been secretly haunting him for years crawls out of the dark recesses of his conscience, gives him thoughts he's not ready nor willing to confront. But he has to.

“It got us together when he was gone,” he mutters, and knows Sara understands what he means by how she suddenly stills against him. “Now what?”

Sara's fingers tighten around Mick's ring. Surprisingly, this small gesture is enough to ground him, to remind him that, despite all the what ifs and the maybes, he's the one Sara chose, and whatever else might have been is lost and buried, never to return. Any other remaning option starts with them – with Sara and Mick – and no one else.

“Now...” says Sara with a playfully pensieve tone. He meets her eyes and finds her grinning. “Is our bed large enough for three?”

The quiet laugh that shakes Mick's chest is completely involuntary and he couldn't stop it if he tried.

“Hold your horses, kid. We ain't getting there any time soon,” he says as Sara, laughing, too, rolls on top of him and kisses him. He brushes her hair back, allows himself a moment to take her in, freckle by freckle. Of all the impossible things to have happened to him in his life, happiness was an enventuality he had never even bothered to take into account, and yet here he is, holding it in his arms like it belongs here, like it was always meant for him.

As if she's reading his mind, Sara's expression softens; she takes his face into her hands, swipes her thumbs over his cheekbones with such love in her eyes that Mick has to look away before he blushes.

Sara chuckles. She kisses his neck, his jaw, then falls back next to him and tugs him to herself. They're lying on their sides, legs tangled, and Mick feels a flicker of guilt to be here, to be happy, when Len is so obviously _unhappy. _

“So,” Sara asks, voice a little husky. “You don't think our Len is willing to share?”

“Problem's not the sharin'.”

“What is it then?”

“You and me, Blondie.”

“Maybe he's a little jealous, but-”

“'t's not just that,” Mick interrupts. “Me and Len, we were on and off all our lives, never found... a balance, I guess. Then he met you and he almost got what he was lookin' for, but you weren't ready to take that step.”

“No,” Sara sighs. “I wasn't.”

“Now he comes back, and finds us happily together.” Mick can hardly imagine what that must feel like. He can't really blame Leonard for being so sour. “Must be a nasty blow.”

Sara rubs a foot up and down his calf and gives him a stern look: “We went through hell and back for this, I'm not going to apologise for what we have,” she says, taking his chin between her fingers. “You turned my life upside down when I least expected it, Mick Rory.” The way she says it makes his chest tighten. “In the _best_ way. Len is stubborn and proud, but we can at least try to explain, make him understand that it's not because we didn't love him that we're together, but because we did.” She bites her lip, then smiles. “We _do.”_

Mick closes his eyes with a sigh. “He ain't gonna listen.”

“I can be very persuasive,” she objects. She slides her hands up Mick's chest, as if to prove a point. She's basically purring, and, yes, Mick can't deny that: she has a way of making people _listen._

“I know you can.” He slips his hand between her thighs and Sara whimpers under his touch. He chuckles. “One way or another.”

“Jerk,” she half snaps and half laughs, but the latter takes over when she leans forward and presses her lips to his. When she pulls back, there's a dreamy haze in her eyes. “I love you.”

She really does, doesn't she? Unbelievable as it is.

“Fool,” he snorts, but he's laughing, and Sara is cuddling up against his chest, small and strong, whispering softly into his ear:

“No. Not at all.”

*

_Sara's wedding dress is her White Canary suit. No fancy gowns, no veils, no flowers. She has no interest in those. And nor does Mick._

_The ceremony is brief and simple, only the two of them and Oliver, and Felicity as a witness. Sara doesn't feel any different when they walk out of the hall and wonders if she should be._

_She gets her answer when they get to the Waverider and Mick scoops her up into his arms to carry her inside through several inches of snow. Nothing is supposed to be different: this is them how they've always been; there's just a piece of paper, now, that says they're husband and wife._

_She holds onto him and giggles all the way to their room. She expects a number of things when he locks the door behind them, but being gently sat down on the bed and Mick sitting next to her is not one of those._

_She watches puzzedly as he dips his hand into the inner pocket of his jacket and draws out a small black box._

_Her eyes widen._

“_Mick-”_

“_I know we said no rings,” he remarks, in a slightly apologetic tone. “But I, uh, thought you might like this.”_

_He opens the box and there are two shiny silver bands inside. Sara smiles fondly at their size difference; it's a little like looking at a ring version of Mick and herself._

“_Did you steal these?” she teases._

_Mick shrugs. “Just the silver. A little souvenir from those pirates last year. Got a friend in Central who works precious metal-”_

“_You mean melts and reshapes stolen jewelry?”_

“_Yeah.” Mick seems a bit uncomfortable; he can barely look at her. “She's good,” he says. “Had her forge the rings and do the engravings.”_

_Sara takes a better look at the two bands; she tears up when she reads what is carved inside each of them. She wants to say something, but words are failing her and she has to bite her lip to keep it from trembling. She doesn't know how he did this, how he could encase the whole essence of their bond in just two_ _, simple words; funny things are happening in her heart all at once and she's feeling quite overwhelmed._

“_Mick,” she says with a broken voice, moved, and happy, and also a little sad. “This is-” she turns to him and finds him staring at the two rings, lips tight. She leans into him, takes his hand and intertwines her fingers with his. “Thank you.”_

_Mick nods. “You like that?”_

“_I love it,” Sara promises. She kisses his cheek, then waits for him to turn and kisses his lips. “I love you.”_

_Mick breathes out a low, smug chuckle. “Never gets old.”_

_Sara lets him slip the smaller ring on her finger, then she takes the othe rone, slides it into the silver chain he hands her and closes it around his neck. He rubs it between his fingers as he looks at her, religiously solemn, then carefully tucks it under his shirt to let it rest against his skin, just above his heart._

_Sara sniffles over a watery smile._

“_Wherever he is, I hope he's happy for us.”_

_Mick snorts. “We got married in a fuckin' snow storm, kid. If that's a sign, 't's pretty cold comfort.”_

_Sara furrows her brows in an amused scowl: “Did you just make a cold pun?”_

“_No.”_

“_Yes, you did.”_

“_Shut up.”_

“_Make me.”_

“_No way.” Mick grabs her by her hips and pulls her onto his lap, arms folding possesively around her waist. “It's our wedding night, Blondie,” he whispers against her collarbone. “All I want is to hear you scream my name.”_

_Sara locks her arms around his neck and rolls her hips in an expert movement with a wicked smirk._

“_You're gonna have to earn that, my love.”_

_She feels Mick grow harder underneath her. A loud moan escapes her lips when his teeth bite into her shoulder and he chuckles._

“_I was hopin' you'd say that.”_

*

No one is talking. Curious glances are being cast around over mouthfuls of food and Leonard, who is casually wolfing down a pile of pancakes, appears to be enjoying the awkwardness of the situation, as if it proved a point.

Sara is sitting next to Mick, surveying the situation from time to time, only to be disappointed by the lack of developments. The team seems to be more interested in examining Leonard rather than staritng a conversation. Sara understands: all they know about Leonard are the stories they've been told about a man who came on board of the Waverider as a famous criminal and died a hero to save his team and the whole universe. To them, Leonard is a myth, a character from a tale; it's going to take time before they see him as one of their own. If they ever get to that point at all.

Sara sighs, turning her breakfast in her plate without much appetite. Mick steals a forkful of her scrambled eggs, then fills her cup with coffee, adds half a sugar and a generous sprinkle of milk. She smiles.

“Thanks.”

He hums in return under Leonard's sharp gaze. Sara can see the calm he's sporting is just a mask for appearances' sake; under that, he's as nervous as she is.

“So, what's the deal?” Len drawls in the middle of the silence. He leans back in his chair, embraces everyone with an insolent look. “Do you have to match some beauty standards to board the ship, nowadays, or it's just a coincidence that everyone around here is suddenly young and hot?”

Zari drowns a laugh into her tea. Next to her, Charlie doesn't even try to show the same decency.

“I like this guy,” mutters Nate, earning an amused nudge from Ray. “A little creepier than his Earth-X counterpart, but he's cool.”

“Me too,” John agrees, cheking out Leonard with an appreciative smirk. “Sadly, other you was taken. Are you spoken for, too, love?”

Leonard sketches a smirk. “That's a very good question, warlock. I'll let you know as soon as I find out.”

His eyes wander towards Sara and Mick. For a moment, Sara is thrown back to three years ago, when she and Len were flirting over card games and circling around each other like lions trying to establish a dominance. This Len is not that Len, though: this Len is not a bold lion, but an wounded street cat that doesn't know if he can trust the hand that's trying to feed him.

After breakfast, they take Leonard on a tour of the ship. Most things are pretty much unaltered, but Sara sees how he frowns at every single difference he spots, every little change putting another inch of distance between him and his sense of belonging here.

“It's obvious Rip's not around anymore,” he comments when they get to the parlour. “This place is a mess.” He picks up an empty whisky bottle from the floor and puts it on the table, then, as if he just remembered, he calls: “Gideon? Still there, girl?”

“Affirmative, Mr Snart,” Gideon replies at once. A genuine smile lights up Len's face, and Sara's heart skips a beat. “And welcome back on board.”

“Thanks. It's great to be back. For now.”

Ray's face falls. “What do you mean _for now?_ You're not staying?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Raymond, but I'm not so sure I still belong here.”

Mick strides forward, brows furrowed. “Shut that dramatic cakehole,” he snaps. “You belong here as much as the rest of us.”

Leonard's eyes narrow defiantly.

“We'll see about that.”

“Hey,” Nate cuts in. “If there's no werewolf emergency, can we have some free time in town?”

He's looking at Mick, but Mick glares: “I'm not your Captain, Pretty.”

Sara holds back a smug grin. She likes that the guys consider Mick a leader; however she also likes that Mick never tires of stressing that she's the one in charge.

“Sara, can we-?”

Sara rolls her eyes at Nate's and Ray's imploring faces. “I guess a few hours off can't hurt.” She pretends to pondder the request a little more, but there's no reason to deny everyone some fun. Besides, she and Mick might use some time alone with Len. “Alright, go ahead!”

There's a general exchange of high-fives and triumphant cheers.

“I want you back by sunset!” she yells after the team as they rush away. “Guys!” she tries again, but no one is listening anymore. Mick pats her shoulder sympathetically.

“I'm seriously tempted to take off and maroon them here,” she groans, and he huffs out a laugh.

“You'd have to come back and fix whatever disaster they'd cause.”

“Good point.”

“Look at that.” Leonard's sarcastic voice makes them both turn to the other side of the room: he's standing on the threshold, arms crossed as he observes them with a lopsided smirk. “You sound like proud parents,” he snarls. “Which is twice as weird, since the household used to be pretty dysfunctional, back in the day. My absence must have been constructive.”

Mick sends him a deadly glower: “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“I'm just saying,” Len retorts. “That by experience I never pegged you or Mick as domestic types. But I guess the problem was just me. You've gone all happy family now, haven't you? Where's the white picket fence and the two point five children?”

Sara stiffens. Len's words pierce through her so unexpectedly that she can't even get a single sound out of her lips.

If Len _knew..._

She feels an all too familiar lump in her throat. She balls her hands into fists to keep them from shaking, to keep herself from punching Leonard, even though he probably deserves it.

“Fuck off, Len,” she hisses, then, before Mick can stop her, she storms out of the room.

There's a dam in her brain she has built to lock away parts of her life she wishes she could erase. Leonard's words just opened a dangerous crack into it, and now old, painful memories are seeping through, bringing back a weakness Sara wasn't ready to face.

She hopes Mick didn't notice the ghosts of tears in her eyes.

She doesn't want him to relive those painful memories with her.

*

“You just gotta be a jerk, don't you?”

Leonard rolls his eyes. For his taste, Mick takes way too much pleasure in playing the protective boyfriend. Would he be acting so chivalrous, if they weren't alone in the parlour?

“What did I even say? That was a little overreacting.”

“Listen to me, you arrogant punk,” Mick grabs his arm and jerks him around, seething with rage. “Stop bein' cruel to her,” he hisses. “You wanna hurt me, knock yourself out, but leave Sara alone. She's been through enough because of you.”

Leonard wants to ask if anyone's interested in what _he_ has been through, in what _his_ traumas are, but he's not sure he wants to know the answer.

“My my,” he sneers instead, circling around Mick like a vulture. “How the mighty have fallen. She must be really great in bed to have you so wrapped around her little finger.”

Once again, his provocation is ignored. Mick just stands there and follows him with his eyes and an irritant curl at a corner of his mouth.

“I know what you're tryin' to do.”

“You do?” Leonard jabs, but Mick is perfectly calm, owns the situation with impredictable diplomacy.

“You wanna be beaten to a pulp, Snart?” he asks defiantly. “I can do that. I've done worse than that for you.”

It's true, he has. They've done any sort of things for each other, some of which so despicable even _they_ should be ashamed of them. But they never were. They've always had each other's back, no matter what, no matter _who._ But, oh, how time changes things.

“You sure have.”

“And you better remember that,” Mick spits, then the tension in his shoulders suddenly eases. “Just give her a break, okay?” he practically begs. Since when does Mick _beg?_ “Your little stunt with that failsafe scarred her more than she cares to admit. Took her an awful lot of time to heal.”

An awful lot of time and an awful lot comfort, Leonard guesses spitefully.

“And I'm sure you were only happy to help.”

To his surprise, Mick saddens. He casts Leonard a wry glare, then slumps down into the closest couch and lets out a long, deep breath.

“Neither of us was happy for a long while,” he says, leaning with his elbows on his knees. The way he glances at Leonard is uncharateristically mild. “We both missed you. She was broken and I hated you, and hated _her._ You did more damage as a dead man then when you were alive.”

Leonard leans against the doorway with his arms crossed. “One's gotta live up to expectations. Or _die _up, I guess.”

“You're a jackass,” Mick barks, but he's amused, Leonard can tell. A lot has changed, but at least he can still read him.

“So you and her...” he begins casually. “It's an established thing.”

“Yeah.” Mick's nod is weak, almost shy. It's not something Leonard has ever seen before, and his stomach twists at this thought, at the awareness that Mick was never like this before – _with him._

“'t's weird, isn't it? Didn't think I had it in me,” Mick is saying. “Gettin' serious with someone. Let alone someone like her.”

_Getting serious._ Leonard guesses it's the closest to _being in love_ he'll ever get from him. It hurts. It's not like the two of them were never _anything,_ but the too many almosts between them are still there, still bleeding and burning, open wounds their stubborness never allowed them to face, let alone mend. And this is where their lack of communication got them: Leonard sullen and angry, Mick living with guilt.

“People change, Mick,” Leonard observes. Something has started melting inside him, the spite and the anger dripping away, uncovering fragile memories of a life before the Legends and the Oculus, before Sara Lance, where he and Mick were enough to each other and didn't need anyone else to get by. A life that's gone and will never return. “Feelings do funny things to us.”

“They do,” agrees Mick wistfully. He stares ahead of himself for a while, silently, only a light crease in his forehead showing a glimpse of his thoughts.

“You gotta apologise to Sara,” he murmurs after a while. “You hurt her, you asshole.”

Yeah, Leonard knows. What he fails to comprehend is what he said to cause such a strong reaction. He saw her, saw the tears in her eyes before she stormed away. He isn't proud of himself for doing that to her.

“I was pissed, wasn't thinking straight.”

“Just do that, alright? Words can be very dangerous weapons.”

“Don't I know.”

“No, you don't.” Mick's frown deepens. He wipes a hand across his mouth with strained expression. “What you said about us playing happy family... You couldn't know, but-”

“What? Hit a sore spot?” Leonard snickers. “Don't tell me you guys are thinking about children.”

“No,” says Mick, barely above a whisper. “Never did. But shit happens.”

Something clicks. Leonard freezes.

“Sara got pregnant last year,” Mick continues, flat and colourless. A heavy shadow has darkened his features. “Wasn't planned. We were still tryin' to figure out what to do when a mission went south. Sara took a blade for me. By the time we got her to the ship it was too late. There was nothing Gideon could do. The kid was gone.”

Something painful cracks in Leonard's chest; he doesn't remember having ever seen Mick like this, so powerless and vulnerable. He curses himself for his damn lack of sensitivity.

He sits down beside Mick, opens him mouth a couple of times to say something, but what is he even supposed to say? He feels like anything he might utter will be the wrong thing. So he just sits there, lets out a light sigh, then takes Mick's hand into his own and squeezes tight.

“I'm sorry.”

“You better be.” Mick raises his gaze from their joined hands like it's a huge effort. He doesn't look sad, just... tired. “What we went through after that... wouldn't wish that to my worst enemy. Maybe we wouldn't even have kept the little thing, but... it sucked that we didn't have a say. Didn't even have a chance to _consider...”_

It's something Leonard simply can't understand, nor can he imagine what it must feel like – what Mick and Sara, and especially Sara, had to go through. He can't even bring himself to be jealous – there's nothing to be jealous of: losing a child, even an unexpected one, must be a terrible experience to overcome. 

“Sara said nothing, didn't even cry,” Mick says. “She's tough. But it almost split us apart. Worst months of my life, after losin' you. Neither me nor her are great at dealin' with loss, y'know. Maybe that's why we got so close when you died.”

It's strange how this revelation seems to soothe most of the resentment boiling in Leonard's veins. So he wonders absently if this is what happened to Mick and Sara, if seeing each other suffering maybe transformed the anger into sympathy, and the sympathy into affection. He would be lying if he said he doesn't understand them.

“Solace can be found in the most unexpected places,” he exhales. “I get it: big trauma, lots of angst, emotional tension turned sexual, one thing leads to another... As you said, shit happens. For what it's worth,” he says, his thumb drawing circles on the back of Mick's hand. “I don't blame either of you. You look happy together, despite everything.”

And it still hurts to say that, but now he can also see that he can't hold them responsible for what happened between them, and, after all, very deep down, he's glad they found each other.

“We are,” Mick confirms, checking Leonard out of the corner of his eye. Leonard dares a reassuring smile.

“Forgive me, my friend,” he says then. “I'm happy for you guys but I'm gonna be bitter for a long while about this. Finding out about you two was a cold shower. Quite _an ice_ surprise.”

In spite of everything, Mick sputters out a laugh.

“Those stupid puns are gonna get you punched in that pretty face, some day.”

Leonard can't help laughing with him.

“Liar. You love them.”

Mick stares at their hands, still joined over their knees. “Yeah, I do,” he mumbles, then his eyes meet Leonard's, and they're so intense and serious Leonard feels their heat all over his body. “It was a hard three years without 'em.”

He stares back, and wonders if he's just imagining the shift in the atmosphere or if maybe, possibly, Mick is actually trying to tell him what he thinks he's telling him.

“I know the feeling.”

“Do you really?”

This closeness, this intimacy... Leonard didn't know how much he needed this until he could finally savour it again.

“Are we still talking about my puns?” he asks quietly. When he looks up, Mick's face is so close to his that the tips of their noses touch. His heartbeat immedialtely speeds up.

“Talk to Sara,” Mick replies, his breath hot upon Leonard's skin. “We'll get our shit together after you've settled things with her.”

There's a brush of their lips, almost imperceptible, and all Leonard wants is to lean in and claim more, dive into the moment and let it burn him away, but this is not the right time. Not yet.

Mick is right: he can't do this if he doesn't come clean with Sara, first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was meant to be a two-chapter story, but once again I got a little carried away and chapter two became way too long to be only one chapter and I had to split it.
> 
> I'm immensely grateful to the beautiful people who left a comment on the first chapter and gave me the motivation I needed. You guys are wonderful! Please, keep the comments coming, you give me life!


	3. A Million Little Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories hurt. Confrontations hurt. Everything hurts.  
Or maybe not.

_It's just before Christmas when Sara starts feeling unwell._

_She thinks it's because of all the candy canes Ray and Charlie have scattered all over the ship along with sparkly decorations and an awful lot of lights. It's the sugary smell that triggers the nausea; it's faint, at first, nothing more that a light annoyance, but it gets out of hand in a matter of days._

_She ignores it for a week or two, files away the fatigue and the dizziness blaming them on the stress of the last couple of missions. When the throwing up gets worse, she decides it's the flu the whole team caught a while ago._

_It's what everyone easily believes. It's convenient._

_It's when she notices a difference in her breasts that she starts panicking; this is when she notices the rest of the subtle changes in her body, too: the uncharateristic tenderness in her abdomen, the way her features have softened..._

_And it hits her._

_She was supposed to get her period last week._

_She's not just stressed, or ill._

_She's-_

“_Fuck.”_

_She falls to her knees and has barely the time to grab the bin next to her desk before she starts retching bitter bile. She's shaking, hands cold and sweaty, and she's never felt so vulnerable in her entire life._

_She tries to stand up again, but her head is spinning and her knees give in. Her heart is pounding against her ribcage; her breath catches in her throat._

_She realises she's crying only when she sees the tears painting dark spots on her shirt. It's a panic attack; it's a vague awareness floating at the bottom of her mind, crushed by louder, more pressing thoughts, the loudest and scariest of which is how she's going to tell Mick._

_This shouldn't have happened. They were so careful..._

_She avoids Mick as long as she can, afraid – _terrified_ – of the mere idea of havng this conversation, but she's not surprised when he comes to confront her after they've barely talked for two days._

_She can't run from this forever._

”_You gonna tell me what's wrong?” he asks, his voice mild and gentle in a way Sara woulnd't have thought possible. Guilt bites her deep in her chest. He has a right to know. This is about him, too, after all._

”_We need to talk,” she says, stepping aside to let him in. Mick obliges, observing her out of the corner of his eye. The creases on his forehead betray a hint of worry._

”_That's never a good start,” he grumbles._

_Sara slumps down onto their bed. She doesn't know where to start, what to say._

“_You know I've been sick for a few days,” she begins as Mick takes a seat next to her._

“_So?”_

_Sara buries her face into her hands._

_So._

So.

_So everything's a mess._

”_And I'm late.”_

_It takes a moment for Mick to process the information._

”_Maybe it's just...” he shrugs. “Stress or somethin'.”_

”_It's not just stress,” says Sara, unnecessarily curtly. “It's- My body's already changing.”_

_God, she sounds so desperate..._

_She's no expert, but judging by her symptoms she must be over a month along, already. Someone has been growing inside her for a month and she didn't even know._

_She's been _drinking,_ for fuck's sake-_

_Mick looks down on her, scans her head to toe; he doesn't seem to find anything to retort. He knows her body as well as she does._

_There's a long pause before he tentatively says: “You took a test yet?”_

_She shakes her head. “No.”_

“_Maybe we should take one before we start freakin' out.”_

_Sara can't help a small smile when he says 'we'. She's profoundly grateful to him for reminding her that, whatever happens, they're in this together._

_So they take a test. They sit together on the bathroom floor for three endless minutes and stare at the stupid white stick until a neat plus sign appears on it. It's not really a surprise to either of them._

_They can officially freak out, now._

*

There's a whole life Leonard didn't get to live.

It's even harder to accept when he tries to squeeze the three years of huge developments that have taken palce without him into the few months it's been for him – such a short window of time he barely got to adjust to Salvation, while on the Waverider things were speeding up – people dying, people leaving, people joining, people losing and finding each other.

This is not the place he left, the crew he left.

He looks at the pretty faces of these guys and wonders if he'll ever be able to connect with these strangers, if he can make himself care for someone again after the ones he almost considered his family are gone and never coming back.

Funnily enough, the few who are still here happen to be the ones he was closest to: his life partner, the girl who stole his attention, the giant nerd with a stupidly giant heart.

A piece of home is still here, and, despite wanting to, Leonard cannot just turn his back to them and forget they ever crossed paths again.

He hates how soft these people made him. Except maybe he really doesn't.

He's been looking for Sara for a while now, but it's like he doesn't know her anymore: she's not in the cargo bay, nor in the training room, nor stealing a sip of scotch in the parlour. He remembers she's the Captain now, and changes his strategy: he doesn't look for her when he'd expect her to be, but in the last place he'd check.

He finds her.

She's in the library, sitting on the floor with (he smirks) a glass of scotch in her hand and a bottle beside her. She's as beautiful as he remembered her; only her eyes show how long it's actually been: it's like they have aged a hundred years, their blue a dimmer shade, heavy with burdens she didn't have, when Leonard met her.

He feels perversely powerful when he reminds himself one of those burdens is _him._

“Didn't know you were a bookworm,” he purrs as he saunters in, drawing his fingers along every surface he comes across. “Or bookbird.”

His quip doesn't touch her. Sara raises a cold glare at him.

“What do you want?”

Deserved, he has to concede that. He sits back on the desk, tilts his head to one side.

“Your boyfriend sent me to apologise. I guess I owe you that.”

Sara takes a sip from her glass. “He's not my boyfriend,” she says.

“Really?” Leonard scoffs sarcastically. “Because I was under the impression-”

“He's my husband.”

Leonard's knuckles whiten as his fingers curl aroud the edge of the desk. He struggles to process the information. Sara's words echo in his mind, a sound too strange and unsettling. He tastes bile in his mouth when he slowly says: “Your _what?”_

Sara raises her hand to show him the silver band on her finger. Only now Leonard realises it matches the one Mick wears on the chain around his neck.

_Married._

Sara and Mick are _married._

He doesn't even know why he's so shocked – they've been together for years, they supported each other through some quite rough patches, so, really, it should't come as such a shocker.

Leonard licks his lips, fakes a smile. “I guess congratulations are in order,” he drawls, unable to completely tame the sarcasm in his tone. “How long?”

“One year next month,” Sara says unapologeltically. She doesn't buy his forced composure. Leonard wasn't expecting her to.

“Mick must have forgotten to mention that in the brief one-hour conversation we just had,” he comments. Drops of poison lace every word.

Sara sighs. She takes the bottle, pours some scotch in her glass and hands it out to Leonard. He breathes out a silent, helpless laugh as he takes it; he drains it in one gulp, then asks for more.

“We were going to tell you,” Sara assures him. “We were just-”

“Waiting for the right time,” Leonard completes. “Of course.”

“Are you mad?”

As soon as Sara asks, he realises that he isn't. It doesn't change much, after all: marriage is only a signature on a piece of paper and what Sara and Mick have doesn't need that sort of validation, nor would in any way be diminished by the lack of that.

“Mad? No. Surprised? Yes.” Leonard hands the glass back to Sara. “Seems like you've really domesticated each other.”

Sara takes the glass, stares at the print of Leonard's lips where it overlaps with her own, the most pathetic surrogate of a kiss. She smiles.

“He nearly died,” she says. “To buy us some time so we could run from an explosion that would have killed us all. He was in a coma for three months. I thought I'd lost him, too.” Her eyebrows twitch. “He woke up, eventually, against all odds, and I knew I couldn't take another chance, waste any more time. I'd already lost one man I loved.”

Her eyes meet Leonard's, soft and _loving._

Leonard is flooded by an inexplicable sense of warmth. His breath catches in his throat when he realises it's _hope._

He couches down in front of Sara, elbows on his knees, and smirks: “Is that a declaration, Captain?”

Sara smiles. “A very belated one. I'm sorry I couldn't say that when you deserved to hear it.”

The fondness in her eyes is still there, bright and hypnotising. Leonard is no fool: he knows when to lock up a deal, especially when he's is no position to bargain. So he flops down next to Sara, steals the scotch bottle and holds it up.

“I'll take what I get,” he says as he clinks the bottle against Sara's glass. They drink and he doesn't miss that Sara chooses the exact same spot he drank from. More surrogate kissing. He wonders what Mick would have to say about this. Nothing in particular, probably. He was the one to urge Leonard to come talk to Sara in the first place, after all – to talk to _his wife._

Sara notices the funny face he must be making. “What?”

Leonard throws his head back against the wall, shakes it a little. “Nothing. It's just hard to imagine good old Mick getting down on one knee.”

“I asked him,” Sara confesses with a shyness that nearly topples Leonard's snarky facade. “Ollie – _Major Queen_ – married us in Star City. It was snowing so heavily, the streets were covered in ice...” She smiles nostalgically at the memory. “We thought it was your way of giving us your blessing. Turns out it was just wishful thinking.” She turns to him, bites her lip uncertainly. “I know you're angry, Len. I understand.”

“I don't think you actually do.”

Sara slides her arm around his, takes his hand to lace her fingers through his. “I just want you to know nothing's changed,” she whispers. “For me or for Mick. We still love you. We never stopped thinking about you.”

Leonard's heart stops when he feels Sara's touch upon his cheek. He leans into it, closes his eyes to savour it. He imagines what it must be like to be _used_ to this as Mick must be, tries to picture the warmth of this touch all over himself, curled with her in bed, and Mick behind him, holding him close. The feeling it rouses inside him is so intense he has to lower Sara's hand and inhale deeply to ground himself.

“It's nice of you to say that after I was so mean to you,” he mutters, looking at her sideways. “Sorry about that.”

“It's okay.”

“No, it's not. I let my bitterness cloud my judgement, and that was unfair to you and Mick.” Leonard makes a pause. “He told me,” he says carefully. “About your baby.”

He feels Sara tense. She licks her lips as she shifts her postion.

“Yeah,” she murmurs feebly. “Not the best moment of our lives.” He sees her fix an indistinct spot on the floor, lost somewhere far, far away.

Leonard feels a surge of compassion for her, and also a bit for himself, because he didn't have any part in this experience they had, and even if it was paniful and left them scarred, they still survived it, came out of it bleeding but stronger, and it's quite a telltale sign of the depth of their bond.

Sara exhales a weary sigh. “I still don't know why it took such a toll on us.”

“Because you love each other,” Leonard replies, with a firmness that surprises even himself. “And whether you liked it or not, it was _yours.”_

How he can be so sure of something he knows nothing of, he has no idea. All he knows is that he would be upset, too, if something as huge as a kid, wanted or not, was to fall upon him only to be taken away in a blink.

The sadness on Sara's face gradually disappears; only a light shade of blue remains, but Sara curls up against Leonard and he can feel the small smile spreading in her cheek.

“When did you become so wise?”

“Spending six months stranded in another time thinking you've lost everything you ever held dear gives you a lot to mull over,” Leonard blurts. He lifts an arm to rope it around Sara's shoulders, lets her get comfortable against his chest. It's good. It's damn good. “Can't say I understand what losing an unborn child is like,” he continues softly. “But I can guarantee you I have at least a vague idea of what you and Mick went through.”

“I guess it wasn't meant to be. I wouldn't have been a good mother, anyway.”

She speaks in first person, doesn't extend the observtion to Mick.

“I beg to differ,” he retorts, and Sara tightens her grip on his arm.

“Did you come here to flatter me?”

“Depends. Will it get me somewhere?”

Sara looks up at him: “That's entirely up to you.”

“So your husband says.” He deliberately uses the term _husband_ to tease her. It works: it breaks the tension, eases the atmosphere. “So, here's the big question: are you guys so eager to take me in because you feel you owe me?”

Sara's response is prompt and unflinching: “No.”

“You sure? Because I'd hate to wake up one day to find out I'm living in a lie built from pity.”

“Len.” Sara straightens up and straddles his lap, then makes him look at her. Leonard would be aroused, if she didn't look so threatning. “Mick and I love you, comprende?” she snaps. “You were always a part of our life even before you came back from the dead. If you want to believe we're doing this only out of pity or some bullshit, suit yourself. You're afraid, I can't blame you.” Then her expression melts. Her thumbs stroke his jaw. “But if you would just give us a chance, we could have it all.”

Leonard closes his hands around her wrists. He observes her, drowns a little in those fierce eyes that are looking at him with so much love he almost can't bear it.

“Careful with what you put on the table, Sara. I'm a very greedy man,” he warns, but Sara isn't easily discouraged.

“Well, I hope your greedy heart can share, Leonard, because this is what's on the table: you, me, Mick... I'm sure we can find a balance, if we're all willing to try.”

“Can't be that simple.”

“No one said anything about simple,” Sara argues matter-of-factly, making him feel stupid for even asking. It wasn't simple when it was just two of them – Leonard and Mick, Leonard and Sara – bringing the count up to three, now, is obviously going to make things exponentially more complicated, but he was never the type of guy to run from a challenge, especially with so much to gain.

“You certainly sound like you know what you're doing.”

“I am.”

If Leonard was wondering what is at stake with her and Mick, now he has his answer: everything. Everything is what they are offering to him, and everything is what he's free to accept or throw away because of his stupid insecurity. There's nothing he can do to make up for the three years he's missed; there's a gap between him and the two of them and it's pointless to try to deny that. All he can do is accept the way things are and allow himself and Mick and Sara to grow back together.

“Well, in that case...” He hooks two fingers under Sara's chin and grins. “Count me in.”

“Really?”

Leonard shurgs. “Doesn't happen every day that you get _two_ second chances.”

“And a chance to screw up _twice.”_

“Ouch.” He brings a hand to his chest with a dramatic grimace. “Give me a little credit, here. I didn't come all the way back from the afterlife to _screw up.”_

“I guess not,” Sara concedes, amusement shimmering in her eyes. “We can do this, Len. I know we can.”

“I think,” he says. The finger he runs down her nose earns him a fond smile. “We all lost enough. Maybe it's time the three of us find each other again.”

*

_Sara lets her head fall back against the wall and lets out an exhausted sigh._

“_What are we gonna do?”_

_Mick is staring at the white stick in her hands as if it might catch fire any moment._

“_We ain't cut out to play family,” he comments, _

_Sara closes her eyes. “Is that your answer?”_

“_Why? You feel ready to take somethin' like that upon your shoulders?”_

_She tells herself she should be furious for such a cold, cynical answer; deep down, however, she knows Mick's right. She's tried to picture him or herself with a baby in their arms, something delicate and fragile and pure, but all they're used to holding are weapons, and a constant journey through battles in space and time in no environment to raise a kid._

“_No,” she finally admits. The light quiver in her voice makes her cringe_

_Mick doesn't miss it._

“_But?”_

“_No buts.”_

“_Bullshit.” Mick rips the test out of her hands, forces her to look at him. “I know you, know that face.” She tries to look away, but he doesn't let her. “Look at me. Sare,” he insists, so sweetly it makes Sara feel, if possible, even worse. “D'you want this kid?”_

“_I- I don't know.”_

_It's such a cruel question._

_She should automatically say no, because she never wanted children, but for some reason she can't utter a sound._

“_I don't know, okay?” she repeats, and this time there is no fighting the trembling in her voice. “I'm just... terrified, and... confused...”_

“_Hey.” Mick takes her face into her hands, rests his forehead against hers, his thumbs tracing soothing caresses on her cheeks. “'t's alright, kid,” he whispers. “'t's alright. We don't have to decide now.”_

_A small sob escapes from Sara's lips. It's not her, she keeps telling herself. It's not her crying like a scared little girl; it's the hormones making her so weak and pathetic._

“_You don't want it,” she sniffles._

_Mick's caresses stop abruptly; he stiffens, hardly breathing, and Sara realises that what she just said implies something – something she doesn't feel quite ready to deal with – and Mick understood._

“_'t's not what I said,” he mutters, suddenly sounding sad._

“_Mick-”_

_Whatever she wanted to say, Mick doesn't let her. He scoops her up onto his lap and cradles her against his chest, holding her tight._

“_Forget it, okay?” he whispers. “Forget I said anythin'. I'm here for whatever you wanna do.”_

_Sara lets out a small, weary laugh that sounds too much like another sob. She lets Mick rock her, allows her breath to even out slowly, syncing with his. His heartbeat is strong and reassuring under her palm._

“_Okay,” she says._

“_Okay.” Mick lets out a worn-out sigh. “Okay.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if I keep adding chapters, but the draft gets longer as I write and I couldn't bring myself to cut anything because... feels. But I do promise chapter four is going to be the last, it's settled!


	4. Together, Complete

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're thives and assassins, but, deep down, they're just big softies.

_Mick was never a feelings person._

_Sociopath, some would call him._

_Len used to say he's got a pretty damn cold heart, for one so obsessed with fire._

_So Mick doesn't really know what happened to him after he set foot on this god-damned timeship – must be the radiation, or the timey-wimey side effects; all he knows is that close and constant contact with people didn't do him good, and being a Legend was but the beginning of the ruin of his reputation._

_His ultimate downfall, despite decades of relative apathy, began with the death of Leonard Snart and ended in the eyes of the young woman who's currently trying to pulverise the punching bag in front of her with kicks and punches, and on her way to succeeding._

_Haircut told him he should be patient, give her space, but Mick has a feeling he's losing her a little more every day, and he's okay with that, if that's what Sara really wants, but he needs to know she's gonna be alright._

“_Sara,” he calls. She's not supposed to be doing what she's doing. She's supposed to be resting and taking it easy. But if she was, she wouldn't be the Captain they all know._

_Sara ignores him. Keeps punching, and kicking, and Mick wonders what he's supposed to do or say to help her – if there's anything at all. She's been out of the medbay for three days and they've barely talked ever since, both because Mick isn't a good talker and because, as of now, Sara isn't particularly receptive. So, all in all, it's not completely his fault they're not communicating._

_He approaches her carefully, his steps mixing with the echo of her grunts. She doesn't look at him, doesn't even acknowledge his presence. Mick would only be happy if she started punching him, instead. This used to be his and Leonard's way of dealing with issues: there's nothing better than physical bruises to heal emotional ones._

“_Sare.”_

_He grabs her wrist, gently forces her to stop. She tries to resist, but it's a lame attempt that tells Mick she doesn't really want to push him away._

_She wipes the back of her hand over the sweat upon her lip with a small sniffle, glances at Mick like she's not sure what he's doing here. But she knows exactly why he's here._

“_You gotta talk to me, kid,” he says. “You can't go through this on your own.”_

_'This' is as far in detail as they can go without ending up yelling mean things at each other with excuses that don't even have anything to do with the problem. Just like the old times._

_'Miscarriage', this is what it's all about. Sara had a miscarriage. It's the proper term they should use, but the word seems to burn on their tongues whenever they try to confront it and in the end they gave up before they got anywhere close to facing it. But this is not good. Mick knows that bullets need to be extracted to avoid infections, because infections, eventually, will kill you._

_Sara places her hands on her hips, lets out a long sigh, then finally nods._

_Mick can see how much she's aching inside by how she refuses to look him in the eye just as he can tell her muscles are aching from how she moves. He doesn't know when he learned to read her so well._

“_You're right,” she mumbles with another nod. “I can't do this alone.” Then she finally meets his eyes, and the storm of feelings he sees in her scares Mick to the bones. But then she takes his hands, and steps closer, and it's like he's suddenly breathing again. “And neither can you,” she says. He detects guilt, and regret. Her thumbs stroke the back of his hands. “I'm sorry for leaving you so alone.”_

_Her tone is genuinely apologetic but firm. She's strong, so much stronger than he is._

“_I don't give a shit about me,” he says curtly. “I'm worried about you.”_

_Sara's expression softens._

“_Well, I happen to give tons of shit about you.” She locks her arms around his waist, gazes up at him with something he can't grasp – love, sympathy, sorrow... maybe all of the above. “I'm not the only one in here who just lost a baby.”_

_Mick holds his breath. He wishes she didn't put it like that; it doesn't help him focus. Losing a baby... he doesn't like to think about it like that. He doesn't like to think about it all._

“_I'm gonna be fine,” he says, and it's a mistake, because it implies something, something he was never going to acknowledge, let alone share._

“_Mick, this is pointless if it doesn't go both ways.”_

_He wishes he knew what it is that she wants to hear from him, so that he can say it and get this over with._

“_I'd tell you how I feel, if I _knew_ how I feel,” he confesses, and Sara nods weakly. She knows he's not lying; he _wouldn't_ lie to her._

_He buries her into a hug, and she presses her face into his chest, inhales deeply. Her body is so small in his arms, so light._

“_What do you need?”_

_Sara moans against his chest. “Wish I knew,” she says, a bit croakily. There's too much silence around them; it reminds Mick of their beginnings, of the voids they didn't know how to fill, the words they couldn't bring themselves to speak. It's like going through that hell all over again, drowning in insecurities and doubts and way too many fears. But they did this once, and they can do this again._

_They end up sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall (the metaphor is so ironical it's almost funny), and the silence stretches, thickens; Mick had forgotten how frustrating it is to have so much to say and not to be able to say it._

“_Why did this happen to us, Mick?” Sara asks after what feels like forever, voice thin and fragile. “We didn't deserve more grief.”_

_Mick sighs, pulls her under his arm and squeezes her gently. “I dunno, Blondie,” he murmurs as she tucks her head under his chin and embraces him. He missed her warmth, the scent of her skin. “Guess life just sucks, sometimes.”_

“_I don't even know why I'm so upset.” She almost sounds angry with herself. “It was just a lump of cells the size of a pea. We didn't even-”_

_He doesn't wait for her to say that they didn't want it. Doesn't want to hear that._

“_We didn't expect it,” he corrects stiffly. “Not the same thing.”_

_It's important that she hears this, that she's reminded that, one way or another, they could have pulled this off, together. Mick's never been a children type of guy, but if Sara had told him she wanted that baby, he would have been there for her – for them. He would do anything for this girl._

_And now Sara is distraught, and there is nothing he can do about that except being here for her, and hold her, and wait together for the pain to go away._

_They've never talked about children – it's never even crossed Mick's' mind, for that matter – but the worst of all, the most frustrating thing, is that they didn't even get to decide: one moment they were having a kid, a moment later they just... weren't._

“_We're gonna get through this, I promise. But you're gonna have to let me in, alright? Don't shut me out.” Something in his chest shrinks as he says: “We hurt ourselves enough when we lost Len. We gotta be there for each other, this time.”_

“_I'm trying,” she protests. “I'm trying to cope, but...”_

“_Sare.” Mick pulls back, frowns down at her. “You gotta give yourself a break. You ain't gonna heal overnight.”_

“_I know-”_

“_No, you don't. You ask too much from yourself. Please,” he whispers, and the word sounds foreign on his lips. He lifts Sara's chin, seeking for reassurance. “I don't wanna lose you. Understood?”_

_Sara's mouth twitches with a small smile; she wets her lips, gives a light nod._

“_Yes. I'm sorry.” She tries to look away, but Mick stops her. “I'm sorry,” she repeats, and Mick's frown deepens._

“_Don't even say that,” he grunts. She can't blame herself, he's not going to allow it. “None of this is your fault, kid. You hear me?”_

“_Yes.” Sara's smile widens, and it's a little watery, but it's a start, and for now it'll be enough._

“_Good.”_

“_Mick?”_

“_Yeah?”_

_Sara climbs into his lap, rubs her face against his chest._

“_Don't leave me, okay?”_

_He runs a hand through her hair, holding tight._

“_I ain't goin' anywhere, kid.”_

*

Mick's imperturbable confidence is both frustrating and annoying.

He lets Sara and Leonard flirt and tease each other, perfectly calm and unguarded, and even snorts at their jokes, occasionally exchanging with Sara looks that seem to encompass whole conversations, and when she smirks Mick smirks back, sending Leonard a knowing glance for the mere purpose of reminding him that he doesn't feel remotely threatened by his return. The little shit.

Leonard envies this boldness, the blind certainty. Considering the current situation, it's going to take him a long while to get to that point, where his position with Mick and Sara is a given and not something he feels he needs to prove himself worthy of.

“I swear to god, Snart,” Mick rumbles. “Can't you think more quietly?”

Mick isn't even looking. He's lying on the couch with an arm over his eyes. Leonard and Sara are playing cards on the floor in front of him, and Leonard, from his position, can see a corner of Mick's mouth curl, as if he could sense irritation.

“Leave him alone,” scolds Sara. “There's freedom of thought on board of this ship, you know?” She throws an ace of spades on the pile of cards on the ground and winks at Leonard: game over.

“And freedom of rest,” Mick grunts back, successfully turning Sara's stern expression into a full, fond grin.

“So, what's the deal, now?” asks Leonard. He tosses his cards upon the rest and stretches lazily, leaning back on the couch with spread elbows. “I just step in? Join the happy couple and suddenly we're a triple, just like that?”

Mick snorts out a muffled laugh from under his arm. “D'you want an engraved invitation?”

Leonard smirks: “Yes.”

“_Len,”_ Sara cuts in with a slightly warning tone, but Leonard shrugs.

“You realise you can't expect me to blend in overnight, right?” he says defiantly, but deep down, beneath the nonchalant facade, he's not as confident as he wants to show. “Whether I like it or not,” he continues bitterly. “I'm several steps behind.”

“We can help with that,” says Sara. She's curled against the couch just next to Mick's head. Mick has fallen asleep, or pretends to be.

“I know. All I'm saying is, you're gonna have to be patient. I'm gonna get frustrated _very_ easily being around you two. You've got your own intimacy, you're moulded around one another... it's gonna take time for me – for all of us to adjust.” Leonard's elbow teases Mick in the knee. Mick grumbles something unintelligible. Both Sara and Leonard smile at that.

“We can't change what happened,” Sara replies. “And it doesn't matter, now. We can take as long as we need. All we care about is that you're back, and now we have a chance fix everything. Together.”

Leonard is about to reply when Mick's knee, a little belatedly, hits back his elbow.

“You think you can do that?” Mick mumbles. He finally removes his arm from his eyes only to use it to shove Leonard off the couch. “Can you not be a selfish asshole and let the three of us find a balance of our own?”

Leonard turns back with a scowl that can't quite conceal his amusement. “I'll have to get used to you being so articulate, first.”

“I'll take it as a yes.”

“Of course it's a yes,” snorts Leonard. Perhaps he's weak and pathetic, but he has this chance and he's not throwing it out of the window. “I didn't look death in the eye to come back and get nothing in return. I want it all: you, her, I want those hot losers out there to be my team,” he gives a sharp nod towards the other room, where Raymond is leading a ridiculous roleplay game. “Side note,” he adds, on a second thought. “Is there any new policy about sleeping with colleagues I should be aware of? Just asking for a friend.”

Mick snickers. “Still got your eye on Haircut, huh?”

“And that pretty boyfriend of his. Wouldn’t mind a few minutes alone with them.”

“Don't scare the boys, Len,” Sara warns, but the sparkles in her eyes are warm and serene. Leonard realises that, slowly, things are starting to slide into place, bit by bit. And, yes, it's gonna take time, but it's not like he's got anywhere else to go.

“Sleep with whoever you like,” Sara is saying, looking at him like there's more she wants to tell him and hopes he gets it anyway. He does. She takes his hand, and her touch is light, tentative. “Just remember to come home, okay?”

Leonard doesn't know how he deserves to be here again and have all of this laid out at his feet for him to take. And he's going to take it all, every crumble of it, because he's been starving long enough and he needs – needs so desperately – a comfort binge.

He smirks.

“Just leave the door open. I'll always come back.”

*

“_Havin' a kid... it would've torn us apart.”_

_Mick lets out a nondescript sound, eyes fixed on the terrible movie on the screen. Sara is eating chocolate ice cream straight from the jar, legs thrown over Mick's._

“_You think so?” she asks, licking a couple of chocolate chips off the back of the spoon._

“_Granted. You'd have hated me for bein' their favourite.”_

_The glare Sara sends him is so lame even she ends up laughing at it._

“_You're an idiot, you know that?”_

_She dips the spoon into the ice cream but Mick hijacks the trajectory and and closes his mouth around it before she can protest._

_He swallows smugly, then says: “Been called worse.”_

“_Yeah?” Sara wipes her thumb over a smudge of chocolate on his cheek and licks it off her finger. “From where I'm sitting,” she begins. “You're the one who stayed calm and collected while everything was a mess. I was falling apart and you held me together.”_

_She offers him another spoonful; he accepts it without taking his eyes off her._

“_Spent most of my life carryin' out half-assedly planned jobs,” he says, a bit nostalgically. It feels like it was another life, another him. “I've learned a thing or two about handlin' unforeseen stuff. Should've chosen my partners more wisely, huh?”_

_Partner is a word that can mean nothing and everything. It's the word that marked his and Leonard's entire relationship, even since they were teenagers: it defines _ _ a bond, but doesn't put strings on it, leaves it open to interpretation and, occasionally, evolution._

_Leonard was never his partner the way Sara is. He could have been – maybe should have been – but they let too much time and too many chances go to waste._

“_I think your taste in partners is on point,” Sara argues. “Life's just like that: not everything goes according to plan.” Then, like she's reading his mind, she adds: “As an old friend of ours would have said-”_

_Mick grins. “Make the plan-”_

“_Execute the plan-”_

“_Expect the plan to go off the rails-”_

“_Throw away the plan.”_

_The nostalgic throb in Mick's chest intensifies._

“_I miss that son of a bitch,” he sighs._

“_Yeah.” Sara leans back against his chest, lets her head rest on his shoulder. “Me too.”_

_And it's not like they're not enough to each other – they are, even if this surprised even them, sometimes. It's just that there always seems to be this blank space lingering in the air, in the atmosphere, snuggled discreetly in a thin crack in their relationship._

_They love each other. They're stronger together. Still, they're not exactly at peace, just the two of them. It's a funny, infuriating feeling, like when you still feel pain in an arm after losing it._

_Leonard is gone, for good. They sort of accept it._

_Mick just wonders, sometimes, how he and Sara being partners would mix up with he and Leonard being partners and Leonard and Sara _ almost _ becoming partners._

_It could have worked, he guesses. It would have been complicated, for sure, but they could have worked together – if not well, at least decently well._

_It's a question that will never be answered._

_It's just crazy that a team of time-travelling, history-saving superheroes can't do anything about that._

*

Leonard is squeezed between Sara and Mick in a bed that's barely large enough for two. He can feel the heat of their naked bodies against his, but it's impossible to tell where he ends and they begin. Sara's head is tucked under his chin and Mick's chest is pressed to his back, heavy and warm. Leonard can feel their hands joined upon his side, a soft lock securing him into place.

He tries to stir without waking them. He feels sore all over, his muscles aching and tired in the most satisfying way. He buries his face into Sara's hair when a smile threatens to curl his lips. He has to admit this is quite nice. It's new to him, and completely foreign, to wake up with someone by his side. _Sides,_ in this case.

Sara hums against his neck when she feels him move, a sound low in her throat that sends a bolt of pleasure down Leonard's spine; Mick responds to the sound, too, pulling them both closer to himself with a sleepy tug.

Leonard feels Sara grin against his skin.

“'Morning.”

Mick lets out a groan in response. His breath is hot on the nape of Leonard's neck. Leonard feels a brush of lips just under his hairline, rough stubble grazing him just the right way.

“Easy, Mick,” he warns as Mick's lips drag over his shoulder. “That's gonna get out of hand quite quickly.”

“Who says that ain't the plan?” Mick's hand brushes over his hip, dangerously close to a very sensitive spot. Sara swats his hand away before he can reach further down.

“Leave him alone,” she scolds, voice thick with sleep. “He's tired.”

Leonard scoffs. He's _not_ tired. Can't a guy just want to enjoy a lazy morning in bed?

“Everyone's tired,” Mick says. “I'm so sore I'll just be lyin' here for the rest of the day. Should've stretched before we did what we did.”

Leonard feels the smile on his lips grow wider. “Tell me about it.”

“I feel pretty great, actually,” Sara yawns. “Wouldn't mind starting all over again.”

“Shut up, kid,” Mick and Len huff in unison. The choir of their laughters is muffled by their closeness.

All of Leonard's muscles ache, even some he wasn't aware of, and he can't even think about moving a single finger, let alone find the stamina to do _all of that_ all over again. It was amazing and everything, but he's a little out of shape with that, and dealing with two hungry partners on a daily basis is something he's gonna need to get used to. _Happily._

He rolls to his back, sighing blissfully. Sara cuddles up; her hand blindly runs up Mick's arm until she reaches his face. She strokes his cheek with her thumb, and Mick, eyes still closed, smiles.

Between them, Leonard lets his eyes flutter closed and tries to imagine what it must feel like to wake up to this everyday. It takes him about two seconds to decide he doesn't want to just imagine it.

“So now what?” he asks. “Do I get a ring, too?”

“I don't see why not.”

“We're gonna have to update the engravin', though,” Mick suggests.

“Do we have room enough to squeeze a _Leonard_ with a _Sara & Mick?”_

Sara's hand finds its way to Leonard's face. It's warm and calloused against his skin. “There will always be room for Leonard with Sara and Mick,” she says. “That's not what the rings say, though.”

“No?”

Mick follows the chain around his neck until he finds his ring; he holds it our for Leonard, who watches him with a questioning frown, then picks up the ring to check what's written inside.

His heart skips a beat.

Something in his throat swells and makes it hard for him to breathe.

It's definitely _not_ what he expected.

It would almost be romantic, if it wasn't also so sad.

“Is this-” he starts asking with a lump in his throat, but Sara's kiss interrupts him.

“I told you,” she says softly. “We never stopped thinking about you. Not a single day.” She lets him stroke the ring on her finger. He doesn't know what to say. “It was Mick's idea, you know?”

“Was it, now?”

Mick tsks. “Stole it from a Taylor Swift song.”

“I'm sure you did,” Leonard huffs. He's about to tease Mick about that, but Sara speaks first:

“Is there anything left of the silver you took from the pirates?” she asks Mick.

Pirates?

Leonard needs to know more about this. Did Mick get to rob real fucking pirates?

“Enough for a ring,” Mick mumbles over Leonard's neck. Leonard _feels_ his chuckle. “A very small one.”

“I feel so cherished right now,” he deadpans, and Mick laughs, and he laughs, and maybe all of this is just a sick joke destiny's pulling on him, or maybe he's actually dead and he's just hallucinating.

“We should definitely fix the engraving,” Sara is saying, ignoring him completely.

Mick's lips spread into a lazy grin. “Shouldn't be too hard to scratch off a couple of letters.”

No, Leonard muses, he can't be dead: he can't have made up this romantic side of Mick, his imagination isn't that wild.

He relaxes into the mattress, pleasantly aware of the weight of the limbs thrown across his body, paralysing him on the spot, as if Sara and Mick were afraid he could sneak out on them.

Fools.

He wouldn't move from here if the ship was on fire.

He falls asleep again to the sound of his lovers' breaths, feeling safe and sound and finally at peace.

It's a little extra that he almost literally had to die to get here, but, all considered, it was worth the trouble.

*

He gets his ring one month exactly after his return.

There's three of them, now. One on Sara's left ring finger, one on the chain around Mick's neck, and one on Leonard's left pinky.

They all have the same engraving, though Sara and Mick's rings do look slightly different due to the necessary correction they had to make.

Leonard doesn't mind that: he's the reason they had to make the correction in the first place, after all, and he's rather proud of that, of being the one who made a difference for them.

It may also be slightly moving, but he's not going to tell them any soon.

After such a long time, it's finally how it was supposed to be.

_Together, complete._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who walked this path with me, especially you wonderful people who leave such encouraging comments and help me keep going! See you all on the next adventure, I hope!

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I go for months without writing a single line and sometimes I write so much I have like six darfts in my folder. My muse is weird.
> 
> I've recently discovered my love for this OT3 thanks to a couple of fics I read (one being "Close to Bone" by Sorrel and one being "Stars" by SophiaCatherine) and this is what sparked from there.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, I'd love to hear what you think of this.


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